Mid Season Thought - Mis-directed Advertising

Having the chance to enjoy the holiday period and watch a bit of TV I have had the chance to look over the last few months. We really went all out this year with our advertising, the aim, to build brand awareness. When folks think of t-shirt printing we want the to think of Pink Nik Designs.

Yet our goal is always to present ourselves in the best, honest and most positive light. I don't understand why large companies like Max Factor, Pantene and various others use mis-directed advertising to sell their products. Actually do know why but my problem is the way in which these companies do it. If you have to put a disclaimer in the advert stating that the final effect was enhanced in post production, surely that's not good advertising. I will accept people will see these adverts and think, wow that's for me, but surely the aim is to present and honest representation of the product you are selling, not what you wish you were selling. If what the product is meant to achieve needs to be added in after the commercial is shot then this product isn't doing what it claims and the advert needs to be changed. Show us what it can honestly achieve. If all it takes is to show the regular mascara compaired to the all singing all dancing then surely that would be enough to convince us.

People are becoming more aware of how advertising really works and how companies are representing themselves surely it is in the best interest of every company to show they are representing themselves in the best possible way, so that if the light does get shone on you and your product it won't crumble at the first review. There are so many sites out their that are allowing people to voice their opinion of your product and service that you better be honest about what you are doing and if you aren't then maybe you should stay away from the spotlight.

New Products for 2010 - Your Thoughts

Hey Folks
We're thinking of introducing a few new products into stock that you can get customised and we'd like to know your thoughts.

So get your feedback on the comments and let us know what you think. :D

To get us started we have customised Flip Flops:

They come in 3 sizes S, M, L and they can have anything printed on them that takes your fancy. So making these perfect for Hotels, Bars, Stag/Hen, Fashion, Boat Marinas, Parties, Promotions, Spa/Health/Beauty outlets, Sports Clubs, Holiday and Tourist attractions and lots more. Price will be approx £15 a pair.

Next is Heart Shape Purse:

This cute little coin purse can be completely customised with a full colour print, so anything from a photo to a lovely piece of art can make this a great gift. Price will be approx £10.

And finally, the Guitar Strap:

This guitar strap is available in 100% white or tan leather and can be printed on in full colour. This is customising gifts at its best. Make a picture collage for the strap or simply print with text. Price will be approx £50.

Ok so that's the 3 of them, we'd really love to hear your feedback.

Christmas Trading Times

We're open right up until Christmas Eve. Huzzah!

We're taking orders on all items until the 21st Dec but after this we'll only be working on our stock items, which include mugs, mouse mats, caps, canvas bags, t-shirts & hoodies (sizes & colour depend on stock).

So if you're wanting something super special don't leave it too late.

Spotlight On - Street Hoodie

We love the Street Hoodies by AWDis. They are the best hoodies avaiable just now with some fantastic features the main highlights being;

• thumb holes in the cuffs of the sleeves
• a pocket in the front pouch to put your mp3 player or phone with an opening to put your earphones through
• up at the neck there are earphone loops

These hoodies are nice and warm and would be the ideal gift or addition to your wardrobe this winter. They can be printed on or embroidered to suit.

To get more information check out our catalogue on the website or call our office an quote garment code JH020.

Take care of Christmas Shopping

Get 10% off by quoting 'BLOG10'

Cannot be used with other promotions|Expires 18th Dec 2009

See Term's & Conditions

Why have a blog?

I was at the latest Blabit Networking meeting in Linlithgow and the discussion rolled around to businesses and blogging. One of the women present was a Herbalist and she was talking about ways to market her business, we chatted about various things but blogging seemed to be something that would really suit her business. We discussed the advantages of a business having a blog and it got me thinking on how businesses including myself could use blogging to their advantage.

If you think about your favourite website..... what makes it your favourite? For me it's regularly updated content. New articles, products and so on. So that should be the aim for your business. A blog gives you an easy oppertunity to do this.

For example the Herbalist could post quarterly blogs about seasonal pick me ups, advice etc., for my business i should be highlighting products, new products and special offers.

Blog aren't hard to work either, you don't need any special skills to run one. Sites like Blogger are very straight forward to use. If you want to add to it and expand the blog by adding gadgets, links, polls, ads and so on then you can but it's not manditory.

A blog would give you something to connect to your customers and give a more personal insight into you and your business. Blogs don't need to be super lengthy, 200 words to give people some thing to quickly read, add extra bonuses by finding links to other sites that maybe of inerest or back up what your saying. Can you post a picture to help make it look interesting? These all help and are easy to do. On Blogger it's just like editing a Word document.

Please reccomend blogs you know for us to check out.

some free blog sites:

Blogger.com

WordPress.com

LiveJournal.com

Yay

I'm feeling really encouraged just now, i've had a few folks mention this blog and so far no bad feed back! I don't really do this thinking people need to know this (although maybe you do :D ) because i know a lot of the things i talk about are out there already, but i like to share what i'm learning being a new business owner and this logs my thoughts on that journey, but if it can help someone else then that is a nice bonus!

THANKS FOR READING! :D

A thought on Comparative Advertising

"Comparative Advertising

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Comparative advertising is an advertisement in which a particular product, or service, specifically mentions a competitor by name for the express purpose of showing why the competitor is inferior to the product naming it.This should not be confused with parody advertisements, where a fictional product is being advertised for the purpose of poking fun at the particular advertisement, nor should it be confused with the use of a coined brand name for the purpose of comparing the product without actually naming an actual competitor. ("Wikipedia tastes better and is less filling than theEncyclopedia Galactica.")" - article link

The first, and only time, i have visited America was in 1996, i was 16. I remember sitting in a friends basement watching tv and the adverts coming on. I was surprised at the advertising, with everyone telling me that this form of advertising was perfectly normal over there. I had never seen advertisers being so blatant as to say "we're better than blah". We sat telling our American friends that they just don't do that in the UK and we think that it's better advertising.

Then about 10 years on and it starts on our advertising and I'm shocked! well maybe that's an exaggeration but i can't believe that we finally caught up with the US to advertise with the same techniques.

Doing a little research i have found that this kind of advertising is regulated in the UK by the ECJ (European Court of Justice), where in recent years when any disputes have risen they have decided who's in the right. One article i read described a dispute between to supermarket giant's in the UK, one of which weren't happy at the way the other was using the information they had about them, but according to what I've read so long as the adverts conform to directive 84/450 which in brief states that so long as the advert is:

• not misleading;does not create confusion;
• does not discredit or denigrate the third party trademarks;
• does not take unfair advantage of the reputation of a trademark; and
• does not present goods or services as imitations or replicas of goods or services bearing a protected ­trademark or trade name.

This whole form of advertising is meant to keep the customer informed, everywhere these days it's all about price comparisons. The customer is wanting the cheapest price and in the current economic climate i think it's only fair everyone watches their penny's but i really don't agree with these adverts.

Every time an advert comes on tv now for one of the supermarket giants and it has price comparisons it gets me really angry. I feel it is the lowest form of advertising, it's like high school "we're better than you" groups.

I know businesses try to keep up with what their competitors are doing and they evaluated it as to how this compares to what they are doing but to then go out and say we're better than them because we're cheaper, means nothing. Walk around your large local supermarket you know the 2 I'll mean and look at the prices for products "we're cheaper than B by 1p"! Well wow! is this what it is reduced to we're cheaper because we can knock a penny of the price. A supermarket can win an award by having the cheapest products because they knock 1p off their prices to ensure the ones they can't give you a decent discount on they can still be cheaper.
So when they say we have 10,000 product cheaper than B it's only because we've knocked 1p of about 75% of them.

I'm wailing on supermarkets as they are most prominent on tv doing it just now but banks are just as bad, if i hear Howard signing once more about comparisons I'll shoot myself!!
I like the adverts used just now by 2 specific companies for the same reason, they show you something that is worthwhile using about their company.

For example: Morrison's main adverts just now are showing that their butchers are in house, they are highly trained and the meat freshly prepared for you. Their butcher will help you pick the right piece of meat for what you're wanting to cook because they are highly trained and friendly. All just for you.

The Royal Bank of Scotland's adverts just now are telling you how they have branches open on a Saturday. Why? because if your to busy during the week you can do it on your day of, they're there for you when you need it.

These 2 companies are showing that they have something, that may not necessarily be unique to them, but it's certainly something that people will look at and think Hey that could be helpful, my bank or supermarket doesn't do that.

The other thing that i don't like about comparative advertising is that your competitor can use your trademark in their advertising. This just should not be allowed the reason something is trademarked is to stop other from using it.

This just all seems like below the belt advertising, what happened to being creative when doing advertising, this is just lazy advertising.

My favourite response to comparative advertising is Windows reply to Mac advert that PC's were old, slow, uncreative and almost useless. But Windows came back with a great set of adverts showing a creative, unique and varied group of people that use a PC for work and play, no mention of their competitors, just taking their turn to respond to the claim that PC's can't do much of anything.

In my mind this is creative advertising, as this advert would have worked well on it's own and now some time on from those adverts it does work well as a stand alone advert and not a response to a claim made by a competitor.

I feel that it is up to businesses to show that it's creative advertising that is going to get people further, showing customers them broader scope of benefits that they'll get from using your business, not just a saving on price because using a business should be more than that. The whole experience should be something to shout about.

Here are the websites that i used for research into this:

http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/in-practice/comparative-advertising-ecj-fizzes-it

http://www.lawdit.co.uk/reading_room/room/view_article.asp?name=../articles/comparative%20advertising.htm

http://www.out-law.com/page-7985

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advertising

There were a couple more but I've lost the links, which i am looking to find to add in here.

How To: Twitter

Here's some tips and sites that are realy useful for any of you lovely folks that may want some more info. if you have a look at these sites and feel you need a bit more help then there are now several places offering courses on how to use social media for marketing, Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce for one, but be sure to note that they probably use these resources as the basis for what they wil be talking about.

Twitters own business site
"Dry, boring feeds rarely draw many people. Successful Twitter business accounts, though, can take many forms. They may be personal and chatty or they might even have mostly automated information. But no matter the style, the key is to post messages that your followers will find compelling."- http://business.twitter.com/twitter101/

Twitter 101 for Business Blog

This link is for a specific post that i think is particular interesting, have a look at the slide show, but definately check out the rest of the blog.- http://twitter101.blogspot.com/2009/07/20-ways-to-tweet-for-companies.html

Chris Brogan

"Ideas About WHAT to Tweet11. Instead of answering the question, “What are you doing?”, answer the question, “What has your attention?”"- http://www.chrisbrogan.com/50-ideas-on-using-twitter-for-business/

Pistachio

This site has lots of really good usful links to articles and tips that are worth checking out- http://pistachioconsulting.com/featured-articles/twitter-for-business/

More useful links (list will get updated or add your own links)
Dosh Dosh - 17 Ways to Use Twitter: My Experiences So Far

Duct Tape Marketing - 17 Ways to Use Twitter for Small Business and Some Not

Twitter: my reply

this post is basically me having a vent, a rant and possibly a moan..... but i'm gonna put up some useful links for those that are interested in finding out more about twitter, as i feel the places charging to give you this information is a bit crafty when there are a lot of resources free online, suprise, suprise. :)

i'm a huge twitter fan, i think it's the one thing i g33k out about most of all! :D i've been reading some articles and forums recently about using twitter for business and a lot of places, such as the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce are offering courses for using social media.... twitter included. i've been thinking about this alot recently and i do see the potential of twitter for business and i use it as a way of promoting my business and so far i think it works well. it is allowing me to contact customers, get inspired about business, follow my interests, keep on top of news and much more.

i think this is my response to those that i've read slamming it as a fad and that the amount of time it takes to maintain something like this is pointless! these people as far as i'm aware don't use twitter, which for one i find this strange that they are being down about it because they don't like it. fine don't use it but don't knock it for that and for generalising that i'm wasting of resources even trying to use it. the good thing about twitter is that it isn't necessary to spend hours on it, but a bit of time can make the difference.

there is potential but it's not for everyone, there are certain things advertising wise i wouldn't touch for my business but it doesn't mean they don't work, in my opinion they aren't for me and that's fine i won't waste my time with them but i certainly wouldn't tell someone else that it wasn't worth their time or money, as it may turn out to be a useful income generator.

so if twitters for you, then great come follow me @ twitter.com/pinknikdesigns, but if it's not for you then fine but don't tell me i'm wasting my time!!

Thought about holidays

My husband and I were fortunate enough that our families gave us a honeymoon as a wedding present but it's raised some interesting points for me to think about! The main one being: How do you work a holiday round your business? Fly half days during the week and an extra day for a long weekend don't really count. I'm thinking like our week away to Menorca.

My husband get's a little annoyed that I take my blackberry and laptop away with me wherever we go, but I try to explain that I am my business and that I need to be close at hand if anyone should need me. Again I'm very fortunate that my family is willing to jump in and lend a hand at looking after things if I go away, but they don't know the complete in's and out's! I suppose more training would be in order so they know the best suppliers to go to when they need something and how best to price an order that doesn't meet our standard price list, as well as a few more things. But I feel that while I'm not really in the position to have someone fully trained up yet this still leaves me taking my blackberry and laptop as part of my luggage!! Hunting down a wifi spot or getting my mobile internet working isn't always useful, so my blackberry is my connection to the world.

The only thing is taking 30 minutes out when your swimming, bbqing or exploring to chat about work related things doesn't always work well as you may not have all the info to hand etc, or training may not have been finished on the thing needing done. I took a day off during the summer to finish things of for our wedding or something like that and I ended up spending the afternoon on skype talking my sister through how to setup a design that was needed while we were gonna be away after the wedding. FYI the desktop sharing function on skype, but like i said fly half days and long weekends don't count.

I've seen several business and know one or 2 others that take a week or 2 in the year and shut shop, let their customers know they'll be closed and that's it holiday time. As far as I'm aware these businesses don't get a lot of on the spot sales, I do know that they get large orders with deadlines and people are informed that anything required during the holiday time has a deadline date and after that, well too bad, but maybe not quite as douchey as that. This works for them, or it seems to but for myself i feel that my business can't close for a week, have the phones down or diverted as this may put people off, send them elsewhere and generally loose us customers. And here we are back to my dilemma!!

So I'm happy that I've had a holiday this year and that there are people that can take care of things while I'm away. I guess whether you take your business with you on holiday comes down to personal preference, but I feel that if i were forced to not take laptop or blackberry and never to seek out a wifi spot the least i could do is have a living breathing answer service for my customers, be happy in the knowledge that the ones that have time and want to use our service will return and that if they don't well, their loss i guess.

Or maybe i could save a little space in my carry on for my blackberry...................

Update: 08/10/09

After making this post a few friends on Facebook saw the link and I got a couple of comments I wanted to share....

"Now that's tough even when you work in the holiday business! The trick is to choose a time when you are traditionally quiet, and let everyone on your contact list know at least three weeks before you go away that you are on holiday. You'd be amazed how many folks need you when they know you are about to take a holiday"

It's been a while

Man i can't believe that it was March when i last posted anything! It seems like such a long time ago now. We've been super busy, which i think has been a result of the networking and careful advertising we have done. Although i must admit there's some advertising that we signed up for that i reallly don't know how effective it's been, but i think i just need to give it time to see how it goes. We had a chap in the office yesterday saying he's had our flier since October, that's 8 months before he came to see us. But the upside is people are holding onto our details when they find it.

I find that networking, although more time consuming, gives the better quality in after sales. I have to admit though that i believe networking isn't just for getting sales, but what you do get is quality! I've been missing networking, it really inspires me and i'm learning new stuff all the time. Which is why i maybe haven't been so regular with the blogging here for a while. Although i'me super excited about the rest of this month, i'm going to 3 networking events and all 3 are very different.

Tomorrow morning see's me heading into a breakfast meeting starting at 7am (i'm hoping the breakfast is worth it), next week i'm going to the first meeting of a women's networking event in a local pub starting at 8pm and finally at the end of the month there's a networking BBQ in a club in Edinburgh that should be a total blast.

But i'm happy because i'm getting married in just over 2 weeks and i think when i come back from honeymoon i'm gonna jump back into networking, i really have missed it, the next few weeks will help me get back into it.

Tradeshows

I've posted about his before on another site but it was some time ago and i was at a tradeshow at the weekend and it got me thinking about it all over again.

So without being to repetitive...

I think tradeshows are a must for any business! They are inspiring and good fun. It doesn't matter if you go as an exhibitor or a visitor. I've always been a visitor and what i get out of it is brilliant, so i think i can safely assume that being an exhibitor would be the same, possibly better.

As i mentioned i was at a show at the weekend and it was great. I was loaded with the cold and felt i could have done with being in bed trying to get better, but I'm glad i got my butt down there. We registered and walked through the door, decided to start on the left side of the hall and the first stall we hit was a supplier that i had been wanting to find for a few months now, maybe even longer than that. The next stall down was another supplier that done something similar. We even got a 3rd contact for the same product later that day.

The whole day went like that, it was so good and i left feeling really buzzed. As we were leaving we went back to one of the stalls to go speak to a rep from one of the clothing brands. I had only met Katie a few days before but it was really nice to meet her again in a different setting and she introduced me to a colleague of hers who was another really good contact. We chatted about clothing sizing, one of my true passions, and about studying  in Galashiels.

If you go to a show make sure you talk to the folks you know as well as folks you don't, again it all comes down to networking. But by chatting to suppliers and other folks in the same industry as yourself means you can get all sorts of hints and tips. Talking to Katie's colleague i was chatting about the clothing they rep, and i was saying how i liked the brand but i wished they did it in bigger sizes as there really isn't that great a selection for larger sizes. They agreed that it was something that would be good to look into and wondered if i would mind getting a call to discuss my thoughts further on the subject, of course i wouldn't mind.

It was good to have someone to talk to about this i do feel there is a big gap in the market for clothing that go higher than a size 18/20, which again is another issue i feel strongly about, and know that for myself and my customers it would be good to have the options for more variety in sizes above an 18/20. I only normally get to talk about this topic to my customers, so to speak to the reps from a company that may be able to do something about it was great.

All in the day of a tradeshow. So to repeat my point, if you get the chance to go to a show then do it, do it, do it.

donate-a-design

One of our customers made us a pic the other day! It's quality.... and sparkly! Which i like! So Mr Reid.... Ta Much!! :D

HUGE banner - pictures finally!

My Nanny passed away last October, this had been something we were expecting as she had had a very bad fall a few months before, she was admitted into the Astley Ainsley Hospital in Edinburgh to recover, but i think she started to like being looked after to much and didn't want to leave there when they said she would be moving on. The staff were great to her, the hospital has lovely grounds, but the only down side was that the ward she stayed in had the worst view... EVER!! i'm not exagerating the view from the McCallum ward was a brick wall. Some bright spark at some point decided it would be great to build a conservatory/tv room for the patients but in the process block a ward window, leaving a gap of 3-4ft to let a little light in. It was a dreary, dull room!

So we decided to brighten the place up a little by making a 10x12ft banner that would improve the view.... here's the finished results.

The staff and patients have told us that McCallum ward is now the most popular ward, thanks to the banner. It's so nice being able to do something for the folks that took great care of my gran!

Chuffed!

Up at the Mall

Well, here we go again!
As of the 12th of January until Sunday the 18th we've a stall up in the Mall (Howgate) in Falkirk. We have been offered this as last years winner of their local best business idea. So if you've read my blog about the pro and cons of this type of advertising it hasn't always been the best for me! But the good thing i do get from it is a bit of free press in the local paper. So we're back again and for anyone interested we're doing a special offer if you order 15 or more t-shirts for stag or hen night then we'll give you a further 10% discount on the total of you're order if you print out the voucher at the bottom of this post! Happy Shopping! :)

VOUCHER NO LONGER AVAILABLE

remember to print this page of and hand it over when you place your order or you wont get the discount.